The Detroit community desperately needed a place like Detroit Experience Factory to welcome not only tourists to the city but those who have lived here for years and never had the opportunity to learn the stories of their community because no one was telling them. DXF’s startup culture along with our awesome supervisors have given Vinit and I a lot of space and opportunity to brainstorm our own ideas of how we wanted to execute our projects instead of just handing over mindless tasks without an explanation. Our organization is also very visibly client-facing, and sitting on the couch next to the Welcome Center desk lets Vinit and I interact with the people, local and not, that DXF serves consistently throughout the day. From the small data entry work we have helped out with in our spare time to our main economic impact report, we have been lucky to see the overall context of our work during this DukeEngage internship.

The first project we had here was to reevaluate and reconfigure the surveys that DXF sent out after their public tours. The purpose of these surveys is to figure out directly from the clients how we can better serve them. Specifically, in the context of Detroit Experience Factory, we ask questions about how their perception of Detroit has changed, whether they are more likely to take a job here after experiencing their tour, and more specifically asked which locations people were returning back to. We also added in questions to gauge how people were finding DXF, so that we can reach everyone who would be interested learning accurate information about Detroit.

Our main project is to quantify DXF’s economic impact on Detroit. DXF’s main method of achieving their mission is through effective storytelling, so Vinit and I decided on putting together a report that is easy to read and still tells Detroit’s story but in a quantitative way. This report adds another dimension to DXF’s services and potentially will reach a new audience or have people thing about DXF in a new light.

One of the best ways to be disappointed by a short experience, internship, or even a job is to expect to change the world. Not only will you be disappointed when you do not eliminate poverty or single-handedly pull Detroit out of economic trouble, but focusing on a problem much larger than your scope limits what you actually could do; you are throwing small, unnoticeable drops of paint all over a wall when you could be transforming a small part of it into a complete painting. For these 8 weeks, Vinit and I have been working within the problem of misinformation on Detroit, but found our niche where we can excel and make visible impact by focusing on DXF’s economic impact.